His Lady
by AmethystSonata
Summary: For the "My Lady" prompt of Daifuku week, I will be delving into the origins of all the names surrounding these two. One-shot following the days immediately after Kuro/Daikoku is named. Unbeta'd because holy crappoli this is late! "When they had met, they were both, in fact, nameless."


When they had met, they were both, in fact, nameless.

She had the name bestowed upon her by the other gods, Binbougami, but it wasn't… a real name.

The other gods and even shinki could take for granted the privilege of having a name, the kind of name that one could call among fellows, distinguishing one happy soul from another, labeling a personality and a humor and a spark. The names the heavens scorned her with were but her profession as a goddess of poverty. Her vitality, her beauty, her compassion, and her pain had no person's name. Like nightmares and bogeymen, she had a secure, endless supply of fearful believers, united in their attribution of all their mismatched bad fortune and fears to one nameless, culturally malleable deity.

People were always quick to blame others for their own shortcomings. They were always too distraught by their own troubles to bother labeling them; therefore it was ALL her domain, every disaster belonged to her, yet nobody could put a name to bad luck.

Little did she know that when she swiped the graceful lines of Kuro, she was also getting a name that day.

"That's horrible. Didn't anyone give you a nicer name than that?" he'd said. "Let's see… hmm. How about Fuku?- no, Kofuku? Yeah, somethin' like that, a bit more girly." Girly. She was now little luck: cute, small, and girly. She had finally been privileged with a name for more than just her inauspicious nature. She was so happy she thought she might burst.

They moved around a lot.

Kuro noticed through their first months together that she made an effort to give anyone who was kind to her playful nicknames.

The first instance, it was a merchant that cut him a good deal on some mandarin oranges. The second, it was a seamstress who let them watch her work for a week (but probably forgot they were there after a while, most of the time). The third, it was a dirty urchin girl who picked up and handed back everything Kofuku kept dropping, and ended up following them back to the storage shed they were currently living in. They doted upon the girl that afternoon and kept her fed and happy. When night came and her confused gaze slid over them like glass, though, the girl left the "empty" shack, never to return.

Kofuku held her regalia while he haltingly wept. Her heart broke for him, knowing what he couldn't know: the reason why he was so affected by the girl. Her neck burned as if ablaze but she knew it couldn't measure up to the acid tightness burning in her precious Kuro's chest.

They could only last so long on the charity of others before Kuro got it in his head that they should find a way to make their own money. Kofuku supported him wholeheartedly, even if she couldn't think of any ways to help him in his venture. (He concluded, although lovingly, that it was probably for the best that she didn't try to help.) He borrowed some tools from the town's carpenters while they slept for the night and went to work.

He felled trees with no experience other than when he had watched the village men. If he weren't already dead, he might have killed himself getting the first few down. After he had enough, he took a break for a few days. He watched the carpenters turn trees into boards. He took the tool for that in the night, but he ran into a problem when he realized needed two people for it. Kofuku wasn't tall enough to help him, so he enlisted the help of a young man who needed some extra money and in the night they cut the boards.

He had no idea what to do with the boards after that. He needed nails, and other tools, and probably the help of at least five other men, and who would help an apparition that they forgot as soon as they met? The hopelessness almost overwhelmed him for a moment, but he resolved not to sting his master- his goddess- his lady, he thought with a fond smile. He would just wait and watch more. There was a married couple raising their house on the other end of the village; he would learn how and make sure he absolutely couldn't do it by himself. He was strong, and he had all the time in the world, so even if it took him longer, he would still do it for both of their sakes.

Over some time he watched them build the foundation, then the floor, then the walls, then the roof, then put in the doors and windows. It was a beautiful house, with marks of good craftsmanship that he would never pull off on his own, but he felt confident in his abilities to get the bare bones built. The nice details could come later.

He spent grueling night hours digging holes and laying posts for the foundation. Sometimes a stranger would wander by and wonder which couple was building their new house; it was certainly nobody they knew! How odd- and then would wander away. Laying floors was easier than raising the walls. That was the moment when he most wished for help. Finally, he sat on the roof, triumphantly working on the thatching. It was enough. While he could have built it faster, he only wanted the best for his lady, and it was worth the extra time.

They moved into it the next night, overjoyed. Kofuku grabbed his hands and spun him into a dance; this was more than anything she had ever had! A whole house, no more slinking around the corners of others', and no more listening to the hurtful words! And it would be just the two of them, she and her ridiculously hot shinki. It really couldn't get any better!

She could tell there was something weird up with him, though. She was getting the ghost of a sting on the back of her neck and found him staring at the floor a lot. In truth, he was thinking about what most couples did when they got their own house, and feeling dirty for thinking of his lady in that context, no matter how much he loved her. Was entertaining the other side of the word kami-san, not just "his goddess", but the loving title of "wife", crossing a line? He felt a shiver of guilt before Kofuku snuck up behind him and made it clear that she certainly did NOT have a problem with that. Every time after that he would take pleasure in calling her (aloud) his lady, unabashedly charged with double entendre, to which she would giggle.

Kuro opened up a business from the house. He foraged for edibles and objects from the forest. He bought from the traders when they came through, in case some people needed time to warm up to the idea of buying the strange foreign items, which would be kept safe in his shop. For being run by two forgettable beings, the shop actually did moderately well, earning him the new nickname "Daikoku" from his pink-haired lady. He wore it with pride.


End file.
